Editor’s Note: We recently asked you, our community to vote for your Games of the Year across a variety of categories. We received a fantastic number of votes, well surpassing last year’s entries, and well, this is just one of many results. Enjoy.

Probably one of the lesser changing genres in the videogame industry: sports. Each year usually brings a new iteration of the same old selection, just bigger and better than before – well, that’s the aim at least. New franchises are few and far between and even then, they take a while to integrate well. It’s difficult for fans to shrug off the shackles of favouritism from the series’ that they have sunk so much time into over the past few years.

With the likes of Pro Evolution Soccer, Football Manager, NHL, NBA, and MLB: The Show making another appearance, and Fight Night Champion and Top Spin making an entrance as the non-annual releases, it was a strong line-up. However, nothing could push aside this sporting giant that year-after-year has improved, continuing to surpass the high standards set the year prior.

Winning beyond all doubt, the MediaKick community’s Best Sports Game of the Year is: FIFA 12.

It was a successful launch from day one, the footballing giant smashed records to become the third biggest launch in the UK ever (at the time), bettering FIFA 11 by an impressive eighteen percent. A figure that equated to worldwide sales of 3.2 million in its first week, with an approximate rise of twenty-three percent worldwide over last year’s record-breaking release. The following week wasn’t any different, which despite a sixty-eight percent drop in sales, still recorded the thirteenth spot in all time weekly sales. It continued to power on, outselling rival PES 2012 by twenty-five to one in their opening weekends. It wasn’t long until the footballing giant hit five million sales, and then acquired the best player on the planet currently, Lionel Messi, as the global face of the FIFA franchise.

Sales weren’t the only aspect that the EA title dominated as it secured a whopping 56.3% of the votes, beating out its nearest rival by more than forty-five percent.

“Minor annoyances aside, FIFA 12 is the complete football package, again,” read my review. “It has unparalleled gameplay, some quite fantastic online modes, a very competent and enjoyable Career Mode and a presentation second-to-none. It’s difficult to see where EA can take the series now, but of course we’ve said that before, and FIFA 12 is the result. I’d always stood by the notion that, in it’s day, Pro Evolution Soccer 5 was the pinnacle of footballing greatest, now I’m not so sure.”

FIFA 12 is still a staple of my gaming week, featuring almost daily during lunch breaks at work, and on many occasions every week at home. The introduction of the player impact engine revolutionised the series, and the inclusion of things such as Precession Dribbling and the new defensive mechanics have greatly improved the game, more than I could’ve imagined after FIFA 11 went on to secure our Best Sports Game for 2010 – and by a not too dissimilar margin either.

Whilst it may not have put up much of a fight in the end, with 10.9% of the votes was Fight Night Champion, which is our runner-up this year. It’s clear however, that EA Sports and FIFA are here to dominate for yet another year, and with the release of a rebooted FIFA Street on the way in March, it could get even better.